


Measure of a Man

by Ardatli



Series: The Dale Cycle [10]
Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Background Billy/Teddy, Crusades, Except for Billy, F/M, Fourth Crusade, Heed the tag warnings, M/M, No sex some violence, this is where the bodies start to hit the floor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 00:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30080379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ardatli/pseuds/Ardatli
Summary: Light the pyre / Name the one whose shield is on his chest / And leave him to his sleepThe one wherein the tower of Galata falls, the crusaders tee up for the Siege of Constantinople, and I quote Geoffrey de Villehardouin a few times.This is part of an ongoing series, and you'll probably want to catch up on some of those stories first in order for this one to make sense.
Relationships: Kate Bishop/Eli Bradley, Kate Bishop/Tommy Shepherd
Series: The Dale Cycle [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/38743
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back? I am bound and determined to finish this series before the summer, so cross your fingers and hope with me. This is the beginning of the end in a lot of ways, encompassing the fall of Chalcedon (mentioned), the fall of Galata (on-page), and the run-up to the Siege of Constantinople. A lot of people are going to die over the next few stories. 
> 
> If you're only here for the medieval vibes and not the 'The Crusades Were Horrible And Bloody and Should Not be Romanticized' object lessons, come back for For Guinevere (next) and Fortune (an alternate ending).
> 
> With so many thanks to Applenapoleon for the beta read! 
> 
> This fic is based on 'Measure of a Man,' by Heather Dale, found here: https://youtu.be/t8fXDemATRc

_Light the pyre_   
_Name the one whose shield is on his chest_   
_And leave him to his sleep_

**1 July, 1203. The Imperial palace at Chalcedon**

Thomas had avoided thinking as he ran back to the palace at Chalcedon. Moving was useful for that; it reduced his world to the thud of his feet on the packed earth, the rasp of his breath, the trickle of sweat down his back on this sultry summer night. The only thought he allowed in was the hope that sang in his bones. _I can save them all._

Not _all_. All was hundreds of thousands of bloodthirsty swordsmen hell-bent on slaughter and pillage. But all those who mattered. William. Kate. Arnould, who was an innocent and should never have been brought along on a quest such as this. Theodore. Despite everything, he’d turned out to be good at heart. Even if his loyalty to all of _that_ was proving to be a colossal obstacle in the way of Thomas’ mission to keep his brother intact.

One way or another, Tom had to get him away from Count Gregory. Theodore’s childhood friend and liege-lord he might be, but the man had Will all twisted up and well on his way to breaking. The lightning when they took this fort had been proof of that.

_Loose the fire or I will kill you both._

Tom hadn’t been sure that Will would obey even then, with Gregory’s dagger pressed firmly against William’s spine.

_How many more deaths do you want on your conscience? How much is your brother’s life worth, compared to strangers? Your own?_

Tears had run down Will’s face, everything contorted in agony as he looked back—to Tom, to Theodore. Tom had been willing to throw himself overboard in that instant; take the choice away from him and on himself. But he was shackled and bound, and Gregory would likely kill Will anyway, and so the helplessness consumed him instead. His knees still ached with the memory of the rough-hewn boards of the deck, his shoulders from the irons that had wrenched his arms behind his back and held them there.

And he had watched, as William brought the lightning down upon the walls, and upon unknown innocents within.

It was the one and only time in his life he’d ever wished for some small piece of what William had, so he could pull the fire from the air and turn it toward Gregory, run the bolt through him and back again until his body melted and turned to ash.

He had been helpless then. He was not now.

Gregory thought them entirely cowed, beaten down and obedient. The time had come to prove how wrong he was.

This would work. It would have to work, because backed into a corner as he was, Thomas was out of options.

He slipped onto the grounds without a challenge, finding the rough edges of the stones to boost himself up over the balcony and into the room he and William had been given to share. He half-expected to break in on Theodore and Will in the middle of something Theodore’s Pope would certainly not approve of. But the lamp was low and Will was alone, sitting up on the soft bed at the sound of Tom’s return.

Tom shook his head and brushed the leaves from his hair as he fought to catch and slow his breath. Will’s face fell, hardly the response he’d hoped for, but then, Tom wasn’t Theodore. He was only Will’s _twin_ , after all, and thus second-place in the man’s heart.

There was a jug of watered wine on the windowsill and Tom drank from it, not bothering to find a cup or bowl. Lukewarm and still, it was better than nothing, and he swiped his hand across his mouth as his pulse slowed to something approaching normal. His feet carried on, though, bringing him one way across the room and then the other, as he tried to settle his thoughts as well as his thudding heart.

Will put out a hand to stop him, flat against Tom’s chest. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Everything. Where’s Theodore? I assumed you’d have smuggled him in here by now.”

Will started to pull his hand back but Tom grabbed it and laid his hand overtop, keeping the contact as long as he could.

“In his room. He’s worried about the Count’s wrath, and nothing I can say will convince him otherwise.” Will curled his fingers around Thomas’ hand and squeezed, then he sank back down onto the feather bed. He dragged in a breath, his eyes haunted. “We need to leave. Tonight, tomorrow, before the next battle, or we’ll all die.” He didn’t speak it like a premonition, nor one of his near-prophetic dreams, but there was a weight and certainty to the words that struck Tom as the truth.

“I know.” Tom didn’t argue, only nodded and dropped to sit beside him on the cool linen sheets. “I think I know a way,” he began, then looked at Will. Fear lay in his eyes again, and Tom hated Gregory all the more. “You’re going to hate this, but it may be the only option Theo will listen to.”

* * *

“You want to turn traitor.” Theo said flatly, arms folded across his chest. Tom wasn’t at all surprised; his first reaction was always going to be resistance.

One candle still burned low on the table, casting its faint glow over scattered pages, ship movements and battle plans. Theodore had been at his council of war with Gregory all that afternoon, Gregory had insisted upon it, and those were the result. Two more days, then those plans would become unfurling sails and rearing warhorses, and bodies torn in pieces to rot on the beaches of the empire.

“Not traitor. Right the wrongs we’ve committed against innocents,” Will took up the cause that Tom had begun. “My powers yesterday to take this city; the devastation at Zara-” he winced when Theo flinched, but they didn’t have the time to be kind. “We owe the world a debt of lives that penance and prayer will never cleanse or repay. I can’t return breath to their bodies. But we have a chance now, however slim, to make the crusader lords pay for the blood they’ve shed.”

He paused to draw in breath and Tom continued instead, standing opposite Will in the half-dark room. “I’ve spoken with the Lady of Scutari, the wife of their Strategus.” What a dour and distant way to speak of Kate, with her hair like the darkest veil of night and the fire inside her that burned brighter than the sun.

_The wife._ A hawk in her gilded cage. This would bring him one step closer to breaking the locks and forcing the door. To let her fly free—let them all fly from this place and begin anew.

Will drew in a sharp breath. He’d known there was a girl, of course. But Tom had been so careful to guard his secret, even from Will; protect her honour, first among everything.

Will was hardly one to talk about inappropriate affairs of the heart! Barely two months into their acquaintance, Will had flung himself into Theodore der Drache’s bedroll and never once looked back. Why could Tom not have the same?

“She has offered us safe passage. Us, and any men we can bring with us. Men, horses, arms—you said that you won’t run. That your honour won’t permit it. Fair. Stupid, but fair,” Tom allowed begrudgingly. “But this is not _running_. This is finally choosing the right side.”

“Thomas and I owe Gregory nothing save a kick in the teeth. And frankly,” Will jumped back in, his temper hot and his fingertips crackling with faint blue sparks that showed brighter in the dim candlelight. “His actions toward you give me no impression that he has any intentions of living up to his promises. What do you owe a liege-lord who does not fulfil his duties to you?”

Theo was weakening, Thomas could _feel_ it, his gaze moving between the twins and back again, before he sank his head in his hands and stared only at the floor. Then he spoke.

“I promised my father.” His voice was unlike himself, broken and small, and Will’s sparks vanished into nothing. He sank to his knees before Theodore, took Theo’s hands in his, and pressed them to Will’s lips. The moment was so intimate, so _much_ , that Tom looked away so as not to intrude.

“Would he be proud of all of this?” Will asked, his voice cracking with anguish. “If he had known what the Count of Methengau would do with his power—would he still have bid you follow?”

Tom glanced back, curiosity winning out over altruism.

Theo brought Will’s hands back to his own knees, head bent low. He didn’t weep, not openly, but a few hot tears fell over Will’s knuckles. “No,” Theo said finally, and he drew in a shuddering breath. “No, he would not.”

When he finally lifted his head, it was with a surprising certainty; one that Thomas hadn’t seen on the man in more than a year. He set his shoulders and then he rose, bringing Will up with him from the floor.

“We will go, then,” Will prompted, hesitant, unsure.

Theo looked past him to Tom. “You are sure of this Lady. She is not leading us into a trap, nor an ambush, to thin our numbers?”

“As sure of her as William is of you,” Tom replied, whip-fast and with a knife-edged grin. No, William had no leg to stand on when it came to condemning Tom for his choices. “And just as recklessly.”

Theo seemed surprised to catch himself letting out a harsh laugh, and he shook his head. “This was thoroughly unfair, I’ll have you know. I can barely hold my own against one of you, never mind a barrage from both sides.”

“It’s because you know we’re right,” Will said.

“You are.” He squeezed Will’s hand one last time, then let go, sobering again. “And I am resolved. I cannot participate in the destruction of another town whose only sin was to be in the way of something desired by powerful men. If we ever served God at all, we abandoned that holy charge long ago — the moment crusader steel first touched an innocent. It would take a hundred men a hundred lifetimes to repair what we have broken.”

“Just because the job cannot be completed in our lifetimes, does not mean we can abandon the attempt,” Will replied, and Tom’s heart picked up speed again. _Almost. We are almost there._ “We have to try.”

Theo swallowed hard, and he nodded. “Thomas, if you would be so good as to find Heinrich. Arnauld will know where he sleeps. And Barnabas. None of the others. Gerhardt and Frederick will not understand, and would not come. Don’t let Gregory or his men see you, or we will all be done for.”

_Glory be._

Tom nodded, already moving for the door. “And you behave yourselves until I come back with them,” he tossed the taunt over his shoulder, elation bubbling through his veins like an apothecary’s most potent drugs. “It wouldn’t do at all to find our brave leader compromised at the moment of our triumph.”

He faintly heard Will cursing him as he let the door close, the English invective he unleashed only broadening Tom’s smile.

_We have a chance to do something right, and get out of here with all our skins intact. We finally have a chance._

* * *

Theo chose his men well. Barnabas, the red-haired friend who had been kinder to the twins than the others of Gregory’s intimate circle, seemed only to have been waiting for the call to action. Heinrich, an enormous wall of a man double Theo’s age, listened to his general calmly, then frowned and folded his arms across his chest beneath his equally enormous yellow beard.

“This last year has not sat right with me,” he finally conceded. “There has been too much blood shed without need for it. And too much talk of land, coin, and plunder. Now we are made pawns and fools in the politics of the Greeks… I like it not. I can bring two hundred men to you by nightfall tomorrow.”

Barnabas looked around at Theo’s room, bigger than that shared by the twins; at Theo settled in his chair as though it were a throne; at Heinrich, with an expression of fear and respect; and then at Arnould at Tom’s feet, the squire taking it all in with a child’s innocent eyes. “I’ll do better and bring three,” Barnabas challenged Heinrich with a laugh. “Gregory was a terror when we were boys and is become a tyrant now. I can think of nothing better than to see him brought low for his hubris and his greed.”

It was the longest speech Tom had ever heard from the man, at least when he was sober, and he quietly revised his impressions of Barnabas up a notch. But only one — at least until he delivered on his promises.

Theo nodded, and he took up his green and gold surcote, stroking the fine, soft wool between his fingers. Then he drew his dagger.

Carefully, deliberately, Theodore unpicked the threads that stitched the crusader cross to his robe. The patch came away in his hand, blood-red wool fraying around the edges, and he cast it to the fire to smoulder and turn to ash. Only a darker green shadow remained on his surcote to show where it once had been.

* * *

So it came to pass, in the still hours of the night of the second day of July, in the year of our Lord 1203, that five hundred men—knights, squires, and those whose names are not written down in history—crossed the mighty Bosphorus under the gold and green banner of the Dragon.

And the armies of the Emperor Alexius, having word of their approach, opened the ranks and welcomed them in.

* * *

Four years later, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, chronicler, would describe the events of the third of July in words that gave all credit to the crusading pilgrims, the devastation they left in their wake reduced to less than nothing.

_The time was now come; and the knights went on board the transports with their war-horses; and they were fully armed, with their helmets laced, and the horses covered with their housings, and saddled. All the other folk, who were of less consequence in battle, were on the great ships; and the galleys were fully armed and made ready._

_The morning was fair a little after the rising of the sun; and the Emperor Alexius stood waiting for them on the other side, with great forces, and everything in order. And the trumpets sound, and every galley takes a transport in tow, so as to reach the other side more readily. None ask who shall go first, but each makes the land as soon as he can. The knights issue from the transports, and leap into the sea up to their waists, fully armed, with helmets laced, and lances in hand; and the good archers, and the good sergeants, and the good crossbowmen, each in his company, land so soon as they touch ground._

_The Greeks made a goodly show of resistance; but when it came to the lowering of the lances, they turned their backs, and went away flying, and abandoned the shore._

* * *

William brought his lightning to the mouth of the Golden Horn, only this time he unleashed heaven’s wrath on the looters and pillagers with the sign of the cross still stitched upon their hearts. Theodore rode beneath his own banner, the green and gold flying, bright sun glinting off his armour and his flashing sword. His men followed him, as they’d sworn, and from his vantage point atop the wall Will watched them surge forward against their former allies, Theo’s name upon their lips.

Even that had not been enough. The Venetian ships disgorged their deadly cargo and the river’s waves brought more men, and still more, overwhelming the Byzantines’ defenses.

They fell back. At Alexius’ word they fell back, making for Galata and the tall watchtower as fast as horse and foot could carry them.


	2. Chapter 2

**10 July, 1203. The Tower of Galata, Constantinople’s Line of Defense**

When Thomas had promised her men and arms, Kate had assumed he meant a small company, perhaps an infantry century if she were very lucky. She hadn’t counted on the five hundred westerners now encamped in the tower grounds. The high walls surrounding the town encompassed enough space to keep them all, thank goodness, along with the remnants of Scutari and Chalcedon’s fighters. It had been barely a battle; the long night had been a rout, followed by another, and another- until it had been all that Elijah could do to gather the shattered survivors around them and make for the safety of Constantinople and the high walls.

The jewelled city spread out in front of her in the night, south across the Golden Horn, the estuary that fed the mighty Bosphorus and Marmara Sea. From her watch on Galata’s wall, it seemed so close that she could almost reach out and touch it, a thousand sparkling lights that called to her in the voice of her half-remembered home. Firenze had looked like that on summer nights, glittering and bright. 

Firenze had been everything to her once; now, eight years into her exile, those memories felt like a fever-dream. And to have heard her mother tongue for the first time in that long, in the shouts of the Venetian invaders—it tore her in two once more. The same question as always played in her mind; where did she belong?

Constantinople was not home, but it was closer than this place: a watchtower surrounded by a town, all built around and for one single purpose. The colossal chain, forged from iron shackles and hammered nails, began at a ring sunk deep into Galata’s stone wall, with the pin extending through the stone itself, so she was told. Strong enough that to remove the ring, one would need to bring the tower down. The other end of the chain had been dragged across the mouth of the estuary weeks ago, affixed no doubt in similar fashion to Kentenarion Tower in the south, on Constantinople’s mighty wall. It glinted in the moonlight even now, a warning to the ships still moored downriver at Chalcedon. _This way is barred to you. No ships may pass._

It remained to be seen if their admirals were smart enough to listen.

Kate gazed across the horizon and watched the moon rise further into the night sky, drawing her cloak closer about herself to ward off a sudden chill. Waning, almost a quarter gone. Still enough to make out the shadows on her silvered face.

Waning?

Kate drew in a sharp and sudden breath.

That couldn’t be right. She always bled at the full moon. Always, for the last eleven years, as unchanging as the rise and fall of the tides.

Unbidden, her hand fell and rested on her belly, the softness there where Thomas had only recently laid his mouth. _Not here, not under the same roof as her husband; but in the glade, the day he’d promised troops, and so many times in the handful of days before-_

Perhaps-

 _Perhaps,_ a terrible, disloyal voice sounded in the depths of her broken heart. _Perhaps the failure lay not with_ me _at all._

The implications were terrifying, but those were problems for a future that was still so uncertain that they might never matter.

She couldn’t think that way. Galata would hold; the great chain across the mouth of the port would keep the Doge and the Pope’s lapdogs out of their waters. And in the meantime, she had walls to walk, and ramparts to man with archers and crossbowmen. When the westerners dared to show their faces again, the very air itself would sing with deadly thorns.

* * *

She came down off the walls as the moon climbed higher, the light, heat, and noise of the great room of the tower expanding over her and welcoming her back in. The council of war was in fine form at the center of the room, the commanders poring over maps and the plans that the former crusader general had brought with him. The fair-haired one his men called the Dragon. He had his charge blazoned on his surcote, of course, a great golden thing displaying its wings across his shoulderblades. Thomas would be around here somewhere, along with the shadow-version of himself. _William_ , he was called. _Guillermo,_ he would have been back home _._ That one was never far from his general’s side.

Tom—she caught herself searching the crowd for him and pulled her eyes away. She did not have the time now to spend dwelling on what could not be changed. The war was all that mattered; reclaiming the forts the crusaders had taken, and then the long process of rebuilding.

Nathaniel should have been there. If Kate was Elijah’s left hand, then Nate had always been his right. And Elijah would be feeling that emptiness keenly now, even though his set jaw and determined brow meant that he would not show it. She knew. Because she knew _him_. He stood an armspan distant from the Dragon, as though, even now, he expected Nathaniel to arrive and step into his rightful place.

It would not happen. Kate drew in a shuddering breath, her chest tight.

For Nate lay now among Scutari’s dead, head resting next to him instead of on his shoulders where it belonged. A casualty of the first wave.

And as much as she and Nate had disagreed—over strategy, over leadership, over _Eli_ —that void at Eli’s side could not be filled by anyone else.

Kate remained near the back of the crowd for a moment, standing on the bottom stair so that she might see over the heads of the onlookers, scarf over her dark hair, to see without being noticed. At home, with the men who knew her, she would not have hesitated to wade in and begin pointing out everything that the doughty commanders had gotten wrong. Here, among these kings and generals, she was just another wife. Even if they allowed her to speak, no-one but Eli would listen.

The Dragon, confident and sure, indicated something on his map. “The fleet will sail north from Chalcedon tomorrow. The aim is to attack the chain and its supports with rams – to sink it to the bottom of the river and bring the fleet up the Golden Horn from there. They mean to make it a naval battle, thinking your fleet will not be able to repel the strength of their ballistas.”

“More fool they. There are fire ships at the Maiden’s Tower and at the base of Galata; even Venetians build their boats of wood. They will not make it within half a league of the chain before they are incinerated.”

“We set the archers on the walls, here and here – the bulk of our troops here along the south and eastern shore.” Elijah was fierce like this, always at his best when he was making plans, seeing a hundred possibilities for success where any other man would barely imagine two. Now he all but glowed with his righteous passion, dark skin warmed by the lanterns set at intervals along the walls and pillars.

It was in these moments where she almost felt that she could love him—might have loved him desperately, had the world only been a little different.

If it had been her choice to do so.

They would continue in this vein for some hours yet, she was sure. There was little need for her to stay, and fatigue was settling in behind her eyes.

Forget them all. She needed to be sharp for the following day, both in eye and in mind. Kate slipped out the way she’d come in, but paused on the stairs. She took the left stairs instead of the right, this time; the room given to Elijah, rather than her own. She would lie down for a while and rest, try and shake off this new exhaustion that had come over her. And then when he came to bed, she would be there to hear all the news and the plans for the battle headed their way. 

After tomorrow, after the crusaders had been sent limping home. Then she would have the time to carefully consider what she needed to devote to her own life—her marriage—such a small thing, when the world as they knew it seemed primed to tumble down about their ears.

What part would she play? Lady of Scutari, if they were ever to rebuild, or rescued damsel-turned-renegade? Both were fantasies of men, ideals that placed her in a niche, on a plinth; a statue painted to become their wish fulfilled.

(Only one included the thought of children.)

There was no third road mapped out before her. She would have to lay those paving stones herself.

Shivering, and not from the cold, Kate undressed in the darkness and slipped beneath the sheets. This was not home, with its familiar sounds and rhythms of the night. But the pillow held Elijah’s scent, and to her surprise, it soothed some of the lonely ache within her soul.

* * *

**11 July, 1203. The Tower of Galata, Constantinople’s Line of Defense**

The sun had no right to be so bright the next morning, nor the birds so cheerful.

Kate rose from bed, half-expecting to find that her bleeding had begun in the night, a final indignity on the morning of war. Of that, there was no sign. Of her husband, there was—already up and dressing, his maille shirt a river of silver in his hands.

“Here, let me.”

“I can manage-”

“Don’t be foolish.”

Kate stepped in behind him, still clad only in her shift, and took the hauberk from his hands. It was heavier than it looked, this burden of his, and she raised it anyway, settled it over his shoulders until he gleamed as well. Not a river; maybe a fish, with mercurial, shining scales.

And she was still half-asleep, obviously, her dreaming brain delivering nonsense where she should already be focusing on the needs of the day ahead. “There,” she smoothed the shirt down across his shoulders, reached for his tabard to lay on top. “Now you look like you know what you’re doing.”

Elijah grimaced and the look she had from him then was the closest she’d come to feeling normal in weeks. “When the fighting starts,” he said, “I want you well away. In here, behind the fortifications and the lines of defense.”

“And do what, sew shirts and banners for you and the emperor while I could be of much better use on the ramparts?” Kate scoffed, and he glared at her. “I’m the equal, if not the better, of any of the emperor’s archers, and you know that. If I had come to Constantinople instead of Scutari, I could be leading a company of them by now.”

“If you’d gone to Constantinople, you’d have been shipped back to Firenze for causing a public disturbance within a fortnight,” he riposted. “At least promise me that you’ll stay on the walls.”

It was as much of a compromise as he was likely to make, and it was easy enough to accept that offered olive branch. “It’s easier to choose my targets from on high; of course I won’t surrender that advantage. You promise me that you’ll actually stay on your horse. The part you sit on is the side without the hooves,” she added.

He was used to her by now, and what would once have gotten his hackles up now only netted her a half-amused smile. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

The trumpets blew; the sails had been sighted leaving Chalcedon’s port. They were out of time. Kate needed to dress, to arm herself, find her place among the archers. Eli buckled on his swordbelt, and took up his shield — _azure, three mullets argent_ — that announced his presence on the field. His helm he tucked beneath his arm.

He turned, the light caught him just so, and some reflection of the curtains sent a blood-red stain across Elijah’s burnished skin. It split his forehead, as though some great sword had come down on him and cracked his skull in two. It was so vivid, so real she could _smell_ the iron in the air, the despair and the grief-

“Wait,” she blurted out, and caught his hand in hers. She dragged him in for a kiss, searching and desperate. Was this – she couldn’t form the question, even to herself.

_Would he-_

He did, after a breath, a pause of uncertainty that she had put there and in that instant regretted more than anything. _He is a good man. He deserves so much better than this._

“Kate-” he began.

“Shh.” She placed a finger on his lips. “Don’t. You have to go to the battlefield and I to the walls, and when we see each other again tonight-” she faltered.

The trumpets blew again, summoning them to war. The image of the red stain flooded over her again, a waking nightmare of his body going cold in her arms. “No. Forget leaving it for tonight,” she said aloud, and his confusion was written loudly across his face.

“I think I am with child,” she said, and watched as Eli’s world stopped turning. It had been an impulse, but so obviously the right one. Now he could leave for battle with his head high, knowing that his greatest wish had been answered, that she had done the one thing he had ever asked of her. His name would continue throughout history.

 _Though not his line, not his blood-_ She ignored the insistent whispers. She didn’t know that for sure, wouldn’t until most of a year had passed. And by then, they would have had ample time to repair everything that had gone wrong.

“It is early yet, very early, so I can’t be certain, but I’ve not had my courses this month and it’s already a week past the full moon. If not longer.”

His expression, though — for a moment it frightened her, not the exuberance or joy she expected. Hesitation, uncertainty, was that anger in the set of his jaw and the dark furrow of his brow? But why-?

“The child is mine,” he said, in a voice so firm and cold that then, right then, she understood.

_He knows._

How, she couldn’t be sure. The only answer was that she had not been careful enough. And he was not a stupid man.

“Of course it is,” she snapped at him, batting away the hand that was reaching for her. “Whose else would it be?”

He looked at her darkly but made no answer. Now it was her world dropping out from underneath her, none of this anything like she might have planned.

“Any child of your body is an heir of mine, by right and by law.” Rigid and unyielding, so desperately wounded.

Not by a crusading knight, or on the field of war. By _her_ hand.

It fell in on her all at once. She had betrayed him with barely any hesitation, her only focus on what _she_ was missing. What _her_ life lacked.

She had not thought of him at all.

All the same, she felt only guilt, and no regret.

The world outside was trembling in anticipation of blood, and of fire. In that room, inside her, there was only ice, frozen and waiting.

Something in Eli’s eyes faltered, as though he too were unsure, wavering in his resolve.

And then the moment broke. He kissed her forehead, a benediction, leaving her wordless. “And when the armies come home triumphant, we will feast and toast to our future.”

Was it forgiveness? Not yet. His eyes were too bright, his jaw set and a muscle twitching by his ear despite his attempt at a smile. She didn’t deserve forgiveness; hadn’t asked for it, so that at least was as things should be.

“Everything will be alright,” he said, calm and cool, his expression unreadable. He shut her out, where she had once been able to predict everything that crossed his mind. “When this is all over, Kate—we’ll fix what’s been broken.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Do you think we can?” _Do I want to? Do you?_

Hand on the door frame, helm beneath his arm, Eli bowed his head and turned away. He gave no answer. He left the room, maille clinking gently, the faintest jingle of bells accompanying him as he took his leave.

The room was warming through with the sun. The ice settled in behind Kate’s treacherous heart, and stayed.

* * *

There was no time to think upon the walls, no time to dwell on what might have been or should have been done differently. There was only nock, aim, fire.

The great tower of Galata rested on the steep, sharp hill that rose up from the shore of the Bosphorus, surrounded by a town, nestled within the protection of thick stone walls that had withstood a dozen sieges. From her vantage point upon the southern wall, Kate had watched the crusader ships approaching, those which disgorged men upon the shore and those which stayed in the river and attacked the iron chain with battering rams. It was creative, she would grant them that much.

Everything was going just as the defectors had promised. The barges came from Constantinople with men and arms, and bowmen to thin the crews of the Venetian ships. Below her, Alexius’ army fought what was starting to feel like endless waves of armed and armoured men; as soon as one rank fell, another would appear to continue the charge.

Her chest thrummed with it, her shoulders and back ached, the shining sun glinting off crusader maille and helms and showing her the dark spots where there were none. Nock. Aim. Fire. She had plenty of arrows, and most found their marks.

Alexius’ banner flew below, joined by the new wave of gold-on-green. They fought well, she noticed abstractly, loosing an arrow that sank into the throat of one of the foe. Twenty feet to her right, William raised his arms and looked to the sky.

Kate held her fire. She’d seen this twice this morning already, watched in awe the first time as the blue fire ripped down from the clear and cloudless sky, arcing from man to man below. They burned, then dropped, not to rise again. The first time, she’d fired with the bolts only to have her arrow knocked from the air. Now she waited, arrow on the string. _Three. Two. Now._

They made a strong team, her arrows filling in the spaces between his strikes. If they could only keep the pace-

Not much longer; the waves of attackers were already sparser, the ranks further between. A drop stung her eye. She dashed the beading sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist, and blinked to clear her vision.

The air itself was greying, not her eyes. Had William’s lightning also brought clouds this time?

“Fire!” The cry went up and Kate wheeled around, heart jumping into her throat. A column of smoke rose from the north-east. Something bright streaked through the air, too far away to make out what, but a moment later another dark column erupted from the town inside the wall.

“Smoke and fire!”

“Stenon, the Jewish quarter – it burns!”

Kate stared as another bright light rose, then fell in a perfect arc—like her arrows, if her bow were ten times the size. Dread crushed her, seized her entirely, and she was running along the wall toward the incoming fire. Feet pounded behind her and William caught up, grabbing for her arm. “What is it?” he asked, fear mirroring hers in his dark eyes. He spoke in French, sounding so much like his brother for a moment that it snapped her out of the blind rush.

“Ballista,” Kate replied, and he blanched. “They’ve brought siege weapons to the _north_ wall!”

“No, that’s impossible,” he insisted—this man whom she’d just seen do impossible things! “I heard Gregory myself. It was absolute. Their plan was to only come from the south.”

“Then he lied to you as well as to your Dragon,” she snapped. “While we’ve been fighting to the south, they’ve brought siege engines to the other side. If they breach those walls, we’ll have little choice but to fall back again, and keep falling. Can you warn them down below? Or use your lighting to ward them off?”

He paused, but only for a beat, and he nodded. “The horns are already sounding to turn the infantry; until they arrive, we’ll hold the northern wall.”

His confidence might have been earned, it might not, but in the moment she couldn’t bring herself to care. He had lightning, she had arrows, and they were needed.

* * *

Needed, but not enough.

It was not a small regiment or century that had broken from the main body of the force to circle the walls; the force arrayed against the northern side must have been encamped upriver, marched down towards Galata and Constantinople from there while the defenders were distracted, focused on the battle for the shore.

They filled the field below, two great ballistas sending fireballs over the walls faster than anyone on the ground could find and douse them. The air boiled and her skin drew tight, heat blooming on her face and exposed arms above her gloves.

William’s eyes rolled back in his head, he raised his arms, and a blue glow suffused him such that he shone—turning himself into a perfect target, Kate growled inside as she sent an arrow through the neck of a man who had the sorcerer in his crossbow sights.

The crossbowman fell, no bolt loosed, and she counted both of them luckier by far than they deserved.

A company came around the wall just as the clouds began to gather, as rain began to fall and douse the flames. She knew those banners, had _sewn_ those banners, despite the mockery she had made of the task only that morning. Elijah stood tall in his saddle, lance set before him, his mouth open, though she could not hear the battle cry over the peal of thunder in the clouds and the pounding of blood in her ears.

Wherever the Strategus led, the enemy scattered. Elijah’s company cut a swathe through the foe, swifter than a farmer with his scythe at harvest time. Bold, brave, fierce, honourable—he was in truth the greatest man she knew. And to think that but for her father’s ambitions, she would never have known him at all.

She could not get down to the field from there, had promised that she would not try, but she could guard his back in the only way she knew how. It would not make up for what she’d done, but it would be a beginning. He had offered that. After eight years of almost-happiness, how could she relinquish this without a fight? And _this_ kind of fight was one she understood.

Nock. Aim. Fire.

The knight approaching Eli’s flank fell from his horse, clutching at the arrow that had blossomed in his throat, the finely-honed heads of her steel splitting the western maille in two and driving deep into invader flesh.

Another tried to make an approach; he too fell, with Kate’s fletching protruding from his thigh.

Elijah turned. He looked up at the wall. A beam of sunlight pierced through the fading clouds and cast a shadow on his face, a shadow red as blood.

Ice; ice in her veins and dread in her heart, sudden and all-encompassing.

Time itself slowed, though the sorcerer was not to blame. Eli looked for her on the wall. He did not see the knight behind him. He did not see the bastard sword lifted high into the air.

Kate saw. She saw as if in a dream, a dream of running through water, her limbs not fast enough, not strong enough.

_Nock._

The sword began to descend.

_Aim._

Eli wheeled around and raised his lance.

_Fire._

The deadly blow came down and struck his head, helm tilting, bone breaking.

A purple-fletched arrow flew straight and true, through the eye-slit of the knight’s helm, and buried itself deep into his eye.

The crusader knight dropped, no time even to scream as her arrow ran through his brain.

Elijah sat upon his horse, very still, and Kate could not breathe.

He slid sideways.

Her husband fell.

His horse bolted, Eli’s feet sliding from the stirrups. He tumbled, boneless, to the ground.

The scream echoed in her ears before the rawness hit her throat, and only the terrible drop down to the rocks stopped her from flinging herself over the ramparts. There might still be time; he could still live, as long as she could get to him before the cavalry ground him beneath their hooves!

She could not jump the tower wall, but there was another path. Kate grabbed William’s arm; this mystic, the seer who had called the lightning and the storm, the rain to put out the fire, to use Zeus’ own weapons against their enemies.

“You said you could work miracles – work a miracle now!” she commanded, pulling him over to the ramparts and showing him the scene. “Do it. You must. Heal him so he can ride away, or – or shield him until the fighting’s done and you can tend his wounds.

“He cannot die!”

William looked and he shook his head, voice choked tight with some kind of grief. “No-one can raise the dead; it’s over. I’m sorry.”

“No!” She set her hand against his chest and _pushed_ – if he would not do it of his own volition, she would force it! They needed the Strategus. His men needed him. She-

She needed him. And he lay broken on the rocks.

Her fault. Again. Had she not distracted him-!

“Please,” Kate begged.

His answer didn’t change.

Hands took her arm and she fought them, hauled away and broke free only to find Thomas there beside her. _Not now, not this, not with him down there and me up here and none of this the way it was supposed to be!_

And once more, he asked her to leave with him. “We have to go,” he told them both, herself and his brother at her side. “Down to the shore, and to the ships. A retreat’s about to be called. The gate’s under attack and won’t hold.”

“Theo?” William asked, a question she didn’t understand.

“On the move. He’ll meet us at the barge.” Thomas took her arm again, urged her into movement though everything in her was screaming to stay. “Katherine. If we don’t go now, we don’t get out of here at all.”

Every bone and muscle screamed against it. Her place was _here._

It would be fitting. Appropriate, somehow. To fall here in a last stand, be buried or consigned to ash with Eli and never have to know what life would be, _after._

But that was also running away, after a fashion.

Her mouth filled with bitter iron and the rest of her empty and hollow, Kate pulled her arm from Thomas’ grip. She would not be _brought_ , like some package. Nor would she look back over the wall.

Kate drew in a hateful breath, and squared her shoulders.

And then she followed him, her skirts tucked into her belt and the stone wet and cold beneath her feet. She followed him along the wall, down the stairs, and to the docks below. 

* * *

_Then a cry was raised in the host, and our people ran together from all sides, and drove back the foe with great fury, so that many were slain and taken. And some of them did not go back to the tower, but ran to the barges by which they had come, and there many were drowned, and some escaped._

_As to those who went back to the tower, the men of our host pressed them so hard that they could not shut the gate. Then a terrible fight began again at the gate, and our people took it by force, and made prisoners of all those in the tower. Many were there killed._

_So was the tower of Galata taken._

\- Geoffrey de Villehardouin

* * *

The moon continued to wane. That night, Kate watched it from the wall of Constantinople. The fire ships lay foundered in the bay, at least one Venetian ship alongside them.

She did not stand alone. Cassandra stayed on her left, tear-streaked and silent; the messenger-turned-bodyguard Andronika on her right, dark curls loose about her face. She too had fought that day, had made it out as unscathed as it was possible to be. They had not spoken since Kate began her climb, up the marble staircase to the wall above the dockyard and the Royal Gate.

Across the Golden Horn, instead of the ships, Galata burned. Not the tower—now a crusader stronghold—but the town, and the fields beyond. She could see the pyres from where she stood, no cloak around her to cut the nighttime chill. She needed to feel it. To remember that there was something still to feel.

Where was his body? Still on the field, below the wall, broken on the rocks? Or tossed uncaringly on the bonfires, that the rotting flesh of the dead would not attract carrion-eaters?

Was he in one of the columns of smoke that spiralled upward from the flames, consigned to ash?

She should be weeping. That was what was expected, surely. To wail and rend her clothing and fall to her knees in sorrow everlasting. She had come close, upon Galata’s wall; begged William for mercy and for grace that were not his to give.

Now all was cold. The summer night should be sultry, cut through by the song of the nightingale, illuminated by the glittering stars. Not for her. If she cried, at least her tears would be warm.

Better this way; to serve her penance on the watch, let the ice freeze her inside and out, and keep her steady vigil until the fires were no more.

And so she stayed, eyes on the tower and the fires and the end of everything. The great iron chain across the Golden Horn swayed with the wind and the waves.

It swayed, then began to collapse. The far end, the tower end, slid toward the river with a scream of metal and a crashing of rock, a cheer rising from the thieves and murderers on the opposing bank. The great chain unlatched from its thousand-year mooring and descended, a mighty metal avalanche into the waves below.

The barrels and logs along its length sank below the surface, dragged down by the immense weight of the hand-forged links.

The last barricade between the crusade and Constantinople’s shores collapsed into the sea.

 _Raise the ring_  
_Cast the broken circle to the waves  
_ _And give the sea her due_

**Author's Note:**

> The text of the Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople, 1207 CE. (real guy, really went on the real crusade, real book.) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6032/6032-h/6032-h.htm
> 
> \--
> 
> One of the official stories has the chain coming down thanks to a ship’s battering ram, but I liked this image better. I’ve already changed history a little by adding a lightning-flinging wizard, so hopefully you’ll allow me some artistic license on the fall of Galata as well. 
> 
> \-- 
> 
> Come play with me on tumblr! [ardatli.tumblr.com](http://ardatli.tumblr.com)


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